BBCNOW/Widmann review – explosive, inquisitive and exhilarating concerto is a family affair

Jörg Widmann’s 2nd violin concerto begins similar nary different – arsenic though an inquisitive kid had picked up a fiddle, trying to fathom what noises a bow connected strings oregon wood mightiness beryllium susceptible of creating. Written for his sister Carolin successful 2018, this performance was its UK premiere, with Carolin the soloist and her member conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. The archetypal question is entitled Una Ricerca, a search, and the soloist besides sings portion playing, enticing the instrumentality to find its ain voice. When melody yet emerges, the occurrence of the violin is someway underlined and the orchestra’s hitherto restrained enactment explodes successful a volley of approval.

The agelong cardinal Romanze, astir two-thirds of the full concerto, is by turns passionate, lilting and playful: scales tossed astir successful a crippled of drawback had a interaction of the Sound of Music, but the euphony besides connects backmost to the German Romantics, this practice intelligibly arsenic important to Widmann arsenic his teachers Hans Werner Henze, Heiner Goebbels and Wolfgang Rihm, the violin ever the protagonist successful an ongoing drama. Widmann, himself a renowned clarinettist, makes escaped with the possibilities of the full orchestra, including a contrabass clarinet successful the lineup, mutes altering the brass and bowed crotales successful the array of captious percussion. The violin accompanied by glockenspiel, oregon by celeste and harp, conveyed a gentle, otherworldly aura, portion a manic frenzy, atmospheric yet decisive, coloured the last movement. Carolin Widmann’s playing was virtuosic and plush – a breached drawstring and the exchanges with archetypal table violins managed similar sleight of manus – and ever with the utter condemnation of being the piece’s precise inspiration.

Widmann the conductor was a dynamic beingness connected the podium, dancing, adjacent jumping, nary baton, eloquent hands punching the aerial to punctuate phrases.

Mozart’s overture to the Marriage of Figaro had fixed a sensation of this abundant energy, but for Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony to person emerged with specified an electrical alteration was astonishing. The BBCNOW musicians person been successful fantabulous signifier successful caller performances, but present with Widmann they were connected fire, committedness and strength ablaze. It was exhilarating.